While
no one was predicting a boom reminiscent of the late
1990s, a trio of top technology journalists was
encouraging about sales and the prospects for new
technologies during a panel discussion held earlier this
month at the New York Software Industry Association's
Sales & Marketing Special Interest Group (Click
here for web site).
The panel was moderated by Trylon Communications, Inc.
President Lloyd P. Trufelman.

Although
the three tech editors who participated in the
discussion - Stephen Lynch of the New York Post, Erick
Schonfeld of Business 2.0 and Josh Weinberger of Ziff
Davis' Baseline - cover the tech arena from different
angles, they all expect a modest upswing in corporate
tech spending this year.

"PC
sales are really the driver of all technology spending,
and we saw a rise in spending on PCs on the consumer
side this Christmas, and I expect that to fuel a rebound
on the corporate side this year," said Schonfeld.
He pointed out that a number of companies upped their
technology budgets as a result of Y2K, and those PCs now
need replacing.

The
Post's Lynch said the mood was upbeat at the recent
Consumer Electronics Show - the annual industry trade
show where new technologies are showcased - and many of
the exhibitors were emphasizing content over technology.
"It is all about expanding content - there was a
lot of talk about digital music and video on demand.
While these are consumer trends, everything piggybacks
off of the trends on the consumer side."

Consumer
gadgets are everywhere, Lynch noted, and corporate
technologists are certainly taking note of the trends.
"There are seven million PlayStations out there,
watches with MSN access and snowboarding jackets with
built-in MP3 players. Nothing seems wacky any
more."

According
to Ziff's Weinberger, the next major desktop release of
Windows may also spark a rise in corporate technology
spending. However, he says companies continue to be
disciplined about their tech spending, with an emphasis
on making the most of current and future investments.
"They're looking at data mining and data
intelligence and other ways to make the most of their
existing technologies," he said. "Expenditures
have to prove themselves."

As
an example of a company making the most of their
existing information and technology, Weinberger said he
recently received an e-mail from a movie theatre after
using his credit card to pay for tickets. "I was a
bit floored," he said, but pointed to this as an
example of the trend of using existing customer data and
technology to mine for additional business.

Voice
over Internet Protocol (voice, facsimile, and/or
voice-messaging applications that are transported over
the Internet) or VOIP, is another example of a
technology that is beginning to prove its value to those
in charge of corporate tech spending, according to the
panelists.

Schonfeld
notes that VOIP is not a new technology, but it has been
slow to take off. "VOIP has been percolating for
the past three or four years, but this is the first year
it is really taking off," he said, because the
technology is becoming stable enough to provide a viable
alternative to traditional telecom.

Another
technology that has grabbed the attention of corporate
technology gatekeepers is Linux - the free or very
low-cost operating system comparable to traditional and
usually more expensive systems.

While
the system has been installed on corporate servers over
the past year, and now many corporate tech gurus are
evaluating putting the system on the desktop as a
possible rival to Windows. "It has been a
phenomenon on the server, and this year it could take
share away from Windows on the desktop," Schonfeld
said.